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Day: March 3, 2017

First on this tape, UFO and an episode called Close Up. Shado are tracking a satellite from Skydiver and from land. I’m assuming this is a miniature, but it’s so good I couldn’t be sure.

The satellite is a test for another project – a spy satellite to track UFOs back to their own planet. This technology moves fast – their project is approved, and they have a NASA launch slot in four weeks. I bet the JPL wishes they could get a satellite designed, built and launched in such a short time.

Although I’m unsure why they need NASA to launch a satellite, since they travel to and from the moon practically daily.

I love how proud Straker is of his satellite.

The way this is done is most odd. They launch the satellite, via NASA, then fly up to moonbase to meet the satellite and attach an additional piece of equipment. I have no idea why this might be necessary.

This episode is a bit like a day in the life of Shado. Straker is the kind of boss who’ll happily get a cup of coffee for one of his staff.

He even tries to give a handy pep talk, but it all goes a teeny bit 1970s.

But there’s a light problem with the probe. Although it’s sending back pictures from the UFOs’ home planet, it’s not sending back information about distance and magnification. Straker doesn’t think this is a big deal, but the scientist in charge demonstrates how not knowing the scale of something can be a problem – by pointing a close-up camera at Lt Ellis’ crotch. I’m not joking.

Oh UFO, you try so hard, have plenty of women in positions of authority, but you’re still not averse to a bit of up-skirt photography.

After this, there’s the start of Robin Hood.

Then, recording switches to BBC1, and the end of the last episode of Resort to Murder.

There’s a trailer for Backup, and for Saturday Night programmes.

Then, Proms 95, and music from Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. I’m actually in the audience along with Bernadette, who at that time was my very new fiancee, having proposed to her a week or two before. I’ll tell the full story of that when we get to another tape, but this summer we went to quite a few Proms concerts, and I we even took time away from the queue to go and buy an engagement ring. I didn’t initially propose in the Proms queue, but I did go down on one knee there to give her the ring.

That’s me, and in front of me with the black hair and glasses is Bernadette’s sister Clara. Bernadette isn’t in this shot as she’s just in front of me, next to Clara.

The music in this Prom starts with one of my favourite pieces, Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, followed by Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. So between my favourite Bernstein piece, and a virtuoso clarinet performance from Richard Stoltzman for Bernadette, who is a clarinetist, it’s no surprise we were at this concert.

The concert ends with Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and we in the audience even got to participate. The conductor, Barry Wordsworth, coached us to shout ‘Mambo’ at a particular point in the music, so I can genuinely say I’ve performed at the Royal Albert Hall.

After this, recording switches to then end of Chandler & Co, and trailers for Backup and Death Becomes Her.

Then, the second episode of Carrie On Hollywood. This is Chasing the Hollywood Dream. Some slightly unnerving scenes of a child talent agent talking to small children. She’s perfectly nice, but it seems like an insidious process.

Along the way she talks to Martin Sheen about having children who act.

There’s a look at the children working on John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned.